my sister had brought over her godmother to my parents' house without calling first. my mother played nice but she hates it when people show up unannounced. i had some rice porridge for lunch. i went out in the backyard and refilled the bird feeder. i went to the basement to check on the plants.
my father's moto G4 plus has been acting up lately. last week i thought it was a virus or maybe malware but i ran a scan and it didn't find anything. instead i reformatted the memory card so it'd be used as internal memory. that didn't seem to work because the phone still glitches, like some ghost randomly pressing on the screen. it could be a hardware issue, in which case nothing we can do but replace the phone. i bought it (XT1644) back in july 2017 though the phone itself was announced in may 2016, so nearly 4 years old. i suggested we as a family should upgrade all our phones to take advantage of the new unlimited data plan. for my father i suggested the 64GB moto G7 ($200) while my mother and i would get the 64GB google pixel 3a ($334). i'd get the pixel because of the exceptionally good camera, though i don't like the fact that i can't add memory (but 64GB should be enough). i like the bigger screen of the moto G7 but i don't like it doesn't have NFC, even though i've never used it.
i got a job offer today to work as a temporary census enumerator. at $27.50/hour, the work starts in april and scheduled to last 8 weeks, with a minimum of 20 hours per week, which might include nights and weekends. 2 days of paid training will begin on the first week of april. they actually tried calling me yesterday but i didn't recognize the waltham number and thought it was phone spam. but they kept calling (but never leaving a message) until i got sick of ignoring them and finally answered. in a week or so i will receive an e-mail with instructions on where to go to get fingerprinted, have my photo taken for an id, and consent to have my background checked. it's nothing glamorous but it's paid work, hopefully kickstart my ass into searching for something more permanent.
boston has its first coronavirus case. a 20 year old umass boston student from wuhan arrived on tuesday with a runny nose. afraid it might be something more serious, he went to go see the doctor and his tests came back today as positive for coronavirus. currently he's quarantined at home, and those he came in contact with are also being monitored. as if things couldn't get any worse, i also learned of a new H5N1 bird flu outbreak in hunan province, a neighbor of hubei. 18,828 poultry were killed in order to contain the virus, which had already killed 4500 chickens. H5N1 is a whole different virus, deadlier than ebola, thought at least they know it uses an avian host.
after dinner, i returned home around 6:30pm. while riding by the harvard-smithsonian astrophysics center, i saw kevin. i was approaching from behind and i don't think he recognized me. he left early this morning, before i woke up. as soon as i got home, i went to go use the bathroom. i heard him coming in while i was taking a shower. he went to his room with the door closed but i knocked to let him know the latest news about the boston coronavirus case. later he came out into the living room while i was watching the 76ers-celtics game on tv to ask about where he can buy face masks online. he said he wanted to send some back to his parents, but later i learned it was his girlfriend in shanghai who was asking. you can't find face masks anywhere these days, and those online are marked up, around $1 per mask, if not more. i told him it wasn't worth it, since express shipping (fedex) alone to china would cost $100-200, and that's not even guaranteeing it'll get there because delivery services have stopped in most cities.